; )

appreciating the input here people, but what about the questions, is group sex a common thing? who here has had a go?

There is also the well documented fallibility of memory. Thus, you can have genuine "true" (for you) memories that don't bear a great deal of resemblance to what actually happened.

Never had a go. Once I played a gig in a hotel and got talking to two girls who got my number to arrange for the band to play one of their 21st birthdays.....they texted my phone (which had a flat battery) with something like "Hi it's Rebecca and Jenny, we're in room 217 and we're having fun. Come play with us x x" at about 2am the same night. It is my greatest regret that I wasn't more diligent in keeping my phone charged. Fuck.

But....seems to me group sex is probably more fun on paper than in reality - I'd imagine you'd need a lot of alcohol and/or drugs in pretty much all cases. A threesome with two girls, on the other hand, would be killer.

does the internet make you feel all masculine like a rapist?

i agree completely, but i'm interested in this, myshkin have you ever tried group sex? would you vote for a pubically acclaimed orgyist or would it have no impact?

thank you

Those men are animals. If they can treat an 18 year old girl like a peice of meat, then they're not the type of people that should be in the police force, let alone in charge of anything. Even if this woman is lying, well I wouln't blame her. Imagine the shame of having been through that, you'd want to do anything to get back at them. What sane woman would consent it?

one of those rare occasions where i agree with you rdor. quietly.

// one of those rare occasions where i agree with you rdor. quietly.

might I say, word.

About these cops and jobs, it is worth noting that two are already ex-cops anyway, the Tauranga fellow is also an ex-Tauranga councillor - he has made a living in more recent times in the "security" industry and has already been up on one charge of illegal possession of firearms. As for the Ass Commissioner - in today's Press, there is an article where his boss says there are a number of complicated issues surrounding whether he can go back to work.

Oh, and the baton thing, that was at the Rutland Street address incident, one that turned out not to be proven. Pity, because it was the perfect address for what was alleged.

Absolutely, Heather. Interestingly enough, I had this discussion about a week ago with a CIB man I know. They'd had a spate of wee girls getting very drunk, ending up in bed with men they didn't know and making rape complaints. He was enormously disparaging of those wee things, and said something I found interesting . He said that because it was important to verify these claims, their questioning of rape complainants was very, very vigorous. He was firmly of the professional opinion that if indeed a rape claim was false that it would be found to be so very early on. Of course, he said, very few of the wee drunk girls' claims had turned out to be true, but that in someone like Louise Nicholas' case, so much had she stuck to her story, and in the face of aggressive questioning that would have been done as part of the investigation, that it would be surprising if convictions were not the end result. Rickards and his mates are very, very lucky in my opinion. I'll be seeing him tonight, so it will be fascinating to hear his thoughts.

The other factor, Heather, is that even when a woman does report a rape and it is taken seriously, the trial process is pretty much as traumatic as the original rape itself, as she'll not only have to relive the entire experience but undergo all sorts of personal questioning in the process. Some women report feeling raped all over again. The difficulty in resolving that is that if we take this presumption of innocence seriously, then we can't really relax it because it is a rape charge.

The other big problem, and I think it was what come into play here, is that the woman could well be not consenting - and the fact that Mrs Nicholls has been alleging rape for years suggests she did not - but the man involved can still have agenuine belief that she is consenting and that will provide a defence. You get three masters of their destiny types, who're basically cocks, thinking that the girl is into it, and they'll get off because their belief of consent is genuine - no matter that a more decent example of humanity might see the intimidatory nature of their behaviour.

rdor, I have thought very hard about that, and I do agree that a woman could potentially end up in a position that she feels terrible about afterwards, and that a close friend or relative could potentially convince her is worth reporting as a rape. I think there are plenty of charges of rape in which the girl involved has been genuinely hurt (or has been convinced that she was hurt), but shouldn't result in a conviction. I think there will be instances where a girl has all sorts of hang-ups that the guy is unaware of, that might result in "morning-after" issues that he never considered.

But I think in most cases, it's not a question of the girl lying. It's about whether the guy(s) involved made a responsible decision that a girl they had sex with was capable of consent. For the reasons that rope brought up, and that you affirmed, this particular case sounds horribly, horribly wrong.

??? so? It is. In the topic starter rope wasn't questioning the judgement, just the dubious sexual habits of the defendants.

Well, I didn't mean to imply that you implied she was. You asked if I could imagine any girl lying in such a situation. I think girls that outright lie about being raped are very very rare.

But, I think it's more common that a girl may not really be sure whether her situation is a rape or not, and could easily be convinced that it was, even if the circumstances were just horribly unfortunate or stupid. Many cases it'd probably be better to forget about laying charges and just try and move on. I imagine a lot of people do that already.

Then that line of thinking led me to the possibility that this particular incident was tenuously consensual group sex - but like you, I just can't see it. The age of the girl and the rank (and number) of the men involved leans very heavily towards the (or at least my) definition of rape, even if she'd kind of gone along with it.

I couldn't imagine a woman lying in THAT situation.
But, off that topic, as for getting mildly drunk, having 'relations' with a really gross guy, and regreting it..... well her regrets are not the guys problem. He shouldn't have to go to jail based on her disgust at the experience. Being a scumbag is not a crime.

//I can imagine a lot of women left feeling used after a consensual on night stand

I can imagine a lot of men left feeling used too.

//Anyone else know were I'm comming from?

I imagine it's sourced in your testicles.

I haven't seen the email myself, but know people who have received it - it contains stuff that's been circulating in lawyerly circles anyway, so I'd already heard most of it. Can't really broadcast the contents here, as we wouldn't want NZM to cop the flak for breaching a supression order.

Of course, in the heyday of usenet, suppressed information was generally being thrown out into newsgroups anyway - in the good old days of online anonymisers. One thing that the government could do is to go down the path taken by the Australian government - they have the power to clobber ISP's for carrying traffic which is offensive or breaches suprression orders - not much different from the Chinese reaction to the internet, as it happens. Not that I've heard of many successful uses of the Australian laws.

re: the chinese attitude to the internet, recently discovered the power of proxy sites....